


Patterns

by graceandfire



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 17:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4487967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceandfire/pseuds/graceandfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones has finally had enough of watching Jim getting himself almost killed on a regular basis.</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p>They have a pattern.</p>
<p>Step one: Jim gets himself phasered or stabbed or bludgeoned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the KM_anthology prompt way back when for 'Crying During Sex' (thought I'd reposted all my fic here by this point. oops...)
> 
> Be warned this is one of the angstier fics I've ever written.

They have a pattern.  
  
Step one: Jim gets himself phasered or stabbed or bludgeoned.  
  
Choked.  
  
Poisoned.  
  
Trampled by a stampeding herd of buffalo-like creatures. With claws.  
  
Step two: Jim swaggers or staggers right on up to death’s door—actually flatlines on three especially dicey occasions—before being regenerated, resuscitated, dosed or sheer _will powered_ back to health.  
  
By Bones.  
  
Who, once he’s sure Jim will recover, proceeds directly to step three: 'righteously pissed off.'  
  
This is the stage in which he bitches Jim out, calling him a stupid, infantile, trigger happy, suicidal dumb-ass of a thrill seeking Yankee fuck-head.  
  
Or something of that sort.  
  
There’s a lot of variety. Bones is creative.  
  
During these rants Jim nods his head and tries to look as pathetic as possible until Bones growls his final "Jackass" and stalks away, returning to check on him at least once an hour, still pissed, hands gentle no matter how harsh his voice.  
  
This is actually step four.  
  
Step five, assuming Jim is fit enough for fucking before Bones has had a chance to cool off, is the sex. And it is not gentle.  
  
It’s rough.  
  
Bones gets aggressive, bossy, even a little mean.  
  
And when Bones gets like this, Jim doesn’t wrestle for who’ll be on top. He just lets Bones take what he wants. Lets himself be manhandled and flipped over and fucked until he’s moaning for it. Until he’s begging.  
  
They have a pattern.  
  
Jim _knows_ the pattern.  
  
Bones isn’t following the pattern tonight.  
  
Jim looks across the bed at his best friend, who’s lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Jim listens to his breathing, and it’s a little too even, like it’s an effort.  
  
“Bones?”  
  
No reaction.  
  
Jim frowns.  
  
They were in the middle of step five. Ten minutes ago, Bones had shown up at Jim’s door, a hard, angry look on his face. He hadn’t bothered to talk, just wrestled Jim back towards the bed, stripping away their clothes with ruthless efficiency. Broad, skilled hands had swept over Jim like Bones was still searching for injuries, only harder. His kiss had been savage, ending with a bite hard enough to fill Jim's mouth with the copper taste of blood. He’d flipped Jim over and continued the hard, roaming bites, chasing them with a scalding hot tongue, large hands pinning Jim in place until Jim starting moaning, something between a protest and a plea for more. Mostly a plea for more.  
  
But then Bones had stopped.  
  
And now Bones is lying next to Jim, staring up at the ceiling, with no expression on his face.  
  
“Bones?” Jim searches for some sign of what the hell is going on. His injuries were minor this time—well, for him—and Bones had sprung him from Sickbay after an overnight that was mostly for observation. The sliced muscles have already knitted together, the scarring on his belly already fading.  
  
“I think I need to transfer.”  
  
“What?” The question comes out quietly, more from shock than self-restraint.  
  
“I think I need to…”  
  
“No.” The word is curt, masking the panic that's starting to jitter along his nerves.  
  
Bones is still staring up at the ceiling, still won’t look at him. “Jim, I…”  
  
“No. _No_. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong, but we can just…”  
  
“We can’t _just_.” His voice is small. “I can’t just keep waiting for you to die.”  
  
Bones’ voice is never small.  
  
“I’m…Bones, I’m not…”  
  
“Not _what_ , Jim?” Bones looks at him now and it hits Jim like a sucker punch, driving the air from his lungs. Because Jim was ready to face the anger in Bones’ eyes. Ready to fight it. But it’s not anger he finds there.  
  
It’s not anything.  
  
Except the emptiness of defeat.  
  
“You jumped in front of a knife today. It almost gutted you.” A large hand brushes against Jim’s bare stomach, thumb tracing the healing scar. It traces lower, to his still hard dick that jumps at the attention.  
  
“It didn’t, though. You patched me up, like you always do.” Jim’s answer ends on a hiss as Bones starts to stroke him.  
  
“Yeah, I patched you up." Bones sounds so tired. "And one day I’m going to be too slow, or too late. One day you’re going to come back to me too broke to fix.”  
  
Jim bucks up into Bones’ hand even as he shakes his head. “No. No, Bones I won’t…”  
  
The hand stills. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jim. You _won’t_ keep.” A small thread of anger twists into the defeat before it cuts away. “You are who you are. You’re Jim Goddamn Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise. You pull miracles out of thin air, you save people, you save planets, you save _us_. It’s important what you do. But you risk your damn fool life at the drop of a hat. You gamble with it like it’s not worth a thing.”  
  
“I…”  
  
“But it’s worth something to me.”  
  
“Bones, I…”  
  
“It’s worth something to me and I’m _tired_ , Jim.”  
  
Bones moves now, leaning over Jim, lapping at the scar which seems to have a direct connection to Jim’s dick pulsing under Bones’ hand. He feels Bones’ hot breath ghosting over him, up his stomach and back down, the unmistakable texture of his tongue drawing sensation after sensation from inch after inch of skin, feels the hot splash of…of…oh, fuck.  
  
“I’m tired of you daring the universe to kill you.” The only hint of the tears burning Jim’s stomach is a slight thickening of Bones’ natural rasp.  
  
If Jim doesn’t look he doesn’t have to see them in Bones’ eyes.  
  
Jim looks.  
  
“Bones, I’m s…”  
  
Bones pulls back and pushes at Jim to turn over. It’s not an order, there’s no demand in it.  
  
Jim turns anyway.  
  
Lies on his stomach and feels Bones kissing the stinging bite marks from before, feels the hot, infrequent splashes against his back that sting and ache worse than any teeth or knife or claw he’s ever known.  
  
When Bones pushes inside him, it’s slow and steady, almost gentle. Unbearable. It fills Jim with panic even as he groans under the rhythm, the hands sweeping over him.  
  
Fills him with panic because it feels like goodbye.  
  
He tries to marshal his arguments even as he shudders and shakes and comes apart. He tries to find the words that will keep Bones by his side. And he’s a selfish fucking bastard because Bones is right. He should let him go. Release him from the darkness of space that Jim loves and Bones tolerates.  
  
But he needs Bones.  
  
He needs Bones to come back to.  
  
“Bones, please don’t go. Just…God… _please_.”  
  
A heavy, shaky sigh is his only answer.  
  
  



End file.
